]]>http://melindavan.com/summertime-book-giveaway/feed/0Children of the Gods get new covers!http://melindavan.com/children-of-the-gods-get-new-covers/
http://melindavan.com/children-of-the-gods-get-new-covers/#commentsMon, 15 Jun 2015 13:00:44 +0000http://melindavan.com/?p=4367Read the rest →]]>Today, instead of me rambling on about the weekend (which honestly wasn’t that exciting) I decided to share some exciting news from an author friend of mine.

REDEMPTION (Children of the Gods #3) is ready and waiting! Along with it, Jessica Therrien will be re-releasing the first two books in her series. All of them have wonderful new covers designed by Carrie Butler, and OPPRESSION will even include a bonus chapter. Here’s the details:

OPPRESSION

(Children of the Gods #1)

September 2, 2015

There are others like her. Many of them. And they have been waiting for her for a long time.

Elyse knows what it means to keep a secret. She’s been keeping secrets her whole life. Two, actually. First, that she ages five times slower than average people, so that while she looks eighteen years old, she’s well over eighty. Second, that her blood has a mysterious power to heal.

For Elyse, these things don’t make her special. They make life dangerous. After the death of her parents, she’s been careful to keep her secret as closely guarded as possible. Now, only one other person in the world knows about her age and ability.

Or so she thinks.

Elyse is not the only one keeping secrets. There are others like her all over the world, descendants of the very people the Greeks considered gods. She is one of them, and they have been waiting for her for a long time. Some are waiting for her to put an end to centuries of traditions that have oppressed their people under the guise of safeguarding them. Others are determined to keep her from doing just that. But for Elyse, the game is just beginning-and she’s not entirely willing to play by their rules.

UPRISING

(Children of the Gods #2)

October 2, 2015

The Descendants have waited long enough for freedom.

Elyse has done everything she can to protect her friends from The Council’s reach. As long as they believe she’s dead, she has time to rest and train for war. And war is inevitable.

When Kara arrives with the news that Anna and Chloe have been captured, Elyse is faced with the realization that no one is safe until The Council is stopped and Christoph is destroyed. She doesn’t need a prophecy to tell her to lead an army. Christoph has done the one thing that ensures she’ll fight to the death. He’s threatened the people she loves.

It will take more than the words of an oracle to help them fight against the most powerful Descendant alive. To break The Council’s oppression and rise up against a plot so many years in the making, Elyse will need to get dangerously close to her enemy. So close, in fact, she may not survive.

REDEMPTION

(Children of the Gods #3)

November 2, 2015

Nobody promised freedom would be peaceful.

Lead Council member, Christoph, is dead by Elyse’s hand, and Descendants have begun to emerge, exposing their secret to the world. Some see this as the prophecy come to fruition, but the prophecy caries a heavy consequence. It was never meant to be as peaceful as most had hoped.

Humans and Descendants struggle to live together in a world that isn’t ready for such a change. America is divided. Those who glorify the supernatural race believe Descendants truly are the gods they claim relation to. Others see them as a threat.

When Elyse gives birth to the next generation oracle, she sees one final vision—war. The destruction of the country’s major cities, and the end of America as we know it.

After her daughter is born, Elyse finds herself without the ability she needs to predict the future. Desperate to save the world from such conflict, she puts her faith in the hope that Descendants are the key to survival. After all, they have the power to supply a broken society with the means to survive.

Excited? Me too! Here’s some countdown timers, you can grab the embed code from them and install on your own website

]]>http://melindavan.com/children-of-the-gods-get-new-covers/feed/0Sale and Giveaway!http://melindavan.com/sale-and-giveaway/
http://melindavan.com/sale-and-giveaway/#commentsTue, 09 Jun 2015 13:00:40 +0000http://melindavan.com/?p=4326Read the rest →]]>My good friend Eva Pohler is having a sale! Not only will you get some great reads for you or your teens, but there’s a giveaway…check it out:

Readers are calling this series, “Amazing,” “Addicting,” and “One of the best modern retelling of ancient myth.” Kirkus Reviews wrote that it’s “sure to thrill Hunger Games fans,” and Midwest Book Reviews calls it “a powerful young adult fantasy.”

A teen becomes entangled with the gods of Mount Olympus when one of them, Thanatos, the god of death, wants his chance at love. He makes a deal with his father, Hades, but not all the gods want him to succeed.

Part paranormal romance and part adventure story, this trilogy follows Therese’s adventures as she struggles to overcome the challenges the gods dish her in her quest to become like them.

For one week only, from June 7th to June 13th, the digital box set of The Gatekeeper’s Trilogy, usually $5.98, can be downloaded from any ebook retailer for 99 cents!

That’s three full-length novels, a total of 230,564 words, for less than a buck!

To celebrate this one-week sale, Eva Pohler Books is also giving one lucky winner a $40 gift certificate of his or her choice, plus a signed paperback set of the trilogy. Keep reading to find out how to enter.

This series was initially written as a trilogy and can end with the third book, or you can keeping reading through all six. This box set includes the first three books. If you want to keep reading, come back here to follow Therese’s adventures as she strives to become a goddess in the ancient Greek pantheon.

After you download your copy of The Gatekeeper’s Trilogy, be sure to enter this international rafflecopter giveaway, which ends at midnight on June 13th. You can enter daily! Then be sure to come back to this page to find out if you won and to get the other three books in the saga!

I started reading this series a long, long time ago. Back when Jordan was still alive, and there was hope and promise that the story would reach some sort of conclusion though with every book released it was dashed, only to be sprung anew. As a huge fan, I didn’t care if it never ended. That is, until the day he died, when I realized it never really would. He did leave notes, and partially written drafts of scenes, and other things to guide those who came after. And I’m sure Brandon Sanderson and Jordan’s wife Harriet McDougal did a remarkable job finishing what Jordan started under the circumstances. I’ll find out sooner or later. But since these books are epics the likes of which George R. R. Martin only dreams about, they take awhile to read and/or listen to, and by the time you get to Book 6 or 7 it’s not uncommon to completely forget what happened in Book 2 or 3. I couldn’t just read the last few without refreshing my memories. I mean, that just wouldn’t be fair, right?

The fact is, I love the world he created, and I love the characters. I hate to give them up, and I can totally understand why he never finished the tale. How do you put an ending on the circle of life? It’s a circle! Constantly turning, constantly renewing and evolving. Always changing, always pushing forward. Plus, how do you bring an end to something you love that much? As an author, I totally get it. As a reader, I’m right there with him. I never want my favorite books to end. I’ll read them twenty times in an effort to keep the magic just awhile longer.

So to give The Wheel of Time the proper fan-girl attention, I started the series over at the beginning. I listen to them all on audio book, because the narrators being the story to life in such a delightful way, and because I can then listen while I exercise. (The same narrators read for the entire series, which is astounding to me given the sheer length of the series.) It turns a task I find especially trying into one I can lose myself in. It works better than music, for me. I forget how long I’ve been walking, how fast, how tired or hungry, or anything, because I’m somewhere lost with Rand Al’ Thor or Egwene and Nynaeve.

If you’ve never heard of the series…I’m not entirely sure what planet you live on. But suffice to say, it’s epic fantasy, and legendary for both the length of the series, the length of the books, and the depth and breadth of the characters and plot lines. It has all the twists, and then some, of anything in Game of Thrones, but without the bloodshed to your favorite characters. Sure, there’s war and things like that, but there’s a core group guiding the adventure who remain relatively intact. At least…until the very end. Since I haven’t read the very end I can’t speak to whether they all die in the Final Battle or not. I hope not. But having lived a lifetime with them I’ll understand if they do.

I read once that Jordan’s wife gave him input on all the female characters, which totally shows in their actions and speech. They feel like real women, not like a man would imagine a woman would be. And the men? Yep, real men. It’s all so real…with the One Power thrown about for good measure and the entire concept of the Wheel of Time itself that I find fascinating. What if it’s true? What if the world does, at some point, reset and begin anew? Oh the possibilities…

The updated cover, for ebooks. I hate it. I wasn’t a fan of the other one either, but this…doesn’t fit the story. At. All.

But I digress. Really, I’m re-listening to all of these because it’s one of my favorite series and because it’ll keep me in exercise entertainment for a long, long time. There’s 14 epic length books in the series, each one about 10 hours of listening time, give or take. Break that down into 30 minutes segments and you can see why I’m only on Book Seven.

I can’t possibly sum up all that is The Wheel of Time. Wikipedia gives it a go, so I’ll leave the link here for you to peruse at your leisure: Wheel of Time Background Info

If you love fantasy, and epic adventures of good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, man vs woman…wait, man working with woman…wait…oh heck, both of those and more, pick this up. Start with Book One, The Eye of the World. Read them in order, because it won’t make sense if you don’t. Each builds on the other until the story is so complex you’ll need therapy to figure it all out.

]]>http://melindavan.com/what-im-listening-to-the-wheel-of-time-by-robert-jordan/feed/0Office Space: Beforehttp://melindavan.com/office-space-before/
http://melindavan.com/office-space-before/#commentsMon, 16 Mar 2015 14:00:00 +0000http://melindavan.com/?p=4209Read the rest →]]>This past weekend my husband and I embarked on a quest to locate the perfect chair for me to plop my rear into while working. Since I spend so much time in this room, in this chair, it’s vital that it serve me well and also be insanely comfortable. I not only work here, I play here too, since my fun time usually involves computer games like WoW. The reason for the sudden quest will be explained in the newsletter on Wednesday, so if you haven’t signed up now’s the time to do it (look up…up at the top of the screen…see that box? enter your email there to sign up). You’ll get the juicy details and an original photo illustration that won’t ever be seen on the blog. The only way to see these special works of art (created by yours truly) is to get the newsletter. So sign up You know, if you want to. I won’t beg or anything. Really.

Since this quest consumed my life for several days I thought I’d share what my workspace looks like now, and when I get it spiffy I’ll share the after. Getting to peak at someone’s workspace is like rummaging around in their brain and seeing all the juicy bits. It says a lot about a person, how they keep their surroundings while working. I’m curious to hear what you think of mine…though in the interests of full disclosure you should know that I did tidy just a bit before I took the picture. I mean…sixteen empty Starbucks cups just doesn’t look rational no matter who you are.

So here we are, my space…before:

Yes, that’s a pillow on my chair. Again, sign up for the newsletter and hear all about it. The shiny white thing on the left is an iPad. That’s a World of Warcraft multi-button mouse, and the green glowing lights in the background on the left is a gaming keypad that helps me cast my spells faster. Yes…I’m that person. The small white electronic gadget on the right behind the Starbucks is a fake sun, because I miss the real one. That box on the right is where I toss everything I don’t want people to see but don’t feel bothered to put away properly. The papers…taxes. ugh. The handle on the one drawer in my writing table has been missing since about six months after I brought it home. The laminate is pealing and the legs are wobbly but it was only $99 brand new so I’m not complaining. It served well for many years. The chair is an Office Depot special. I hate the chair.

So there you have it! My “before” writing/designing space. Share your own! I’d love to see them. I showed you mine, after all